September 24, 2012 10:57 PM CDTSeptember 25, 2012 03:16 AM CDTCowlishaw: After another odd ailment, Josh Hamilton already seems back at full power

Cowlishaw: After another odd ailment, Josh Hamilton already seems back at full power

2/19

Louis DeLuca/Staff Photographer

Mike Napoli and teammates mob Adrian Beltre after Beltre's single gave the Rangers a 5-4 win in the bottom of the ninth inning during the Oakland Athletics vs. the Texas Rangers major league baseball game on Monday, September 24, 2012.

ARLINGTON — Before he would take the field and recapture the American League home run lead with a monster 441-foot shot to right center, Josh Hamilton was struggling to explain to about 20 media members the symptoms of his odd-sounding ailment — ocular keratitis — when he stopped.

Hamilton returned to the Rangers’ lineup Monday and played a pivotal role in the 5-4 victory over Oakland that reduced the Rangers’ magic number to five. Hamilton homered and walked twice and put to rest all fears that the vision disorder that slowed him in Anaheim and forced him to miss the Seattle series would linger in the Rangers’ final homestand.

After all, for Hamilton, this was no big deal. A man who was felled by drug demons a decade ago was laid low this time by caffeine and energy drinks.

“It wasn’t impacting my vision. It was impacting my ability to be ready to play the game,” he said.

Basically, Hamilton said it was something like “a sugar-high times 10” that caused him to stare at one spot too long and lose concentration. Although it was certainly an odd reason to miss five meaningful games in September, Hamilton wasn’t pleased that the team announced he was out with sinus problems.

“Give me a break,” he said, after the crowd had thinned out. “I’ve played with cracked ribs, pulled groins, and now I’m not playing because I have a sinus problem?”

But he acknowledged it was a difficult ailment to describe that caused him to feel vulnerable while facing one of the game’s best pitchers, the Angels’ Jered Weaver, Tuesday night before he left the game after two at-bats.

I asked him if he thinks he’s more equipped to be productive in this year’s playoff run than last year’s, when a rib injury kept him from producing a postseason home run until Game 6 in St. Louis.

“I don’t know, how many games do we have left? Ten?” he said, smiling. “Yeah, as long as nothing happens, I think I’ll be in better shape this time.”

Then he went out and, after being retired twice, blasted a home run to the upper deck in right center before drawing a pair of walks to finish a triumphant night.

Only the unwise or uninformed would bet against Hamilton delivering when it counts either down the stretch against these A’s or when the playoffs begin.

Despite missing the last five games, Hamilton has regained the AL home run lead, moving one past Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera, who’s in pursuit of an elusive Triple Crown.

Without question, manager Ron Washington has a more formidable lineup card when he gets to write Hamilton’s name into the No. 3 spot. Baseball’s highest-scoring team averaged just three runs per game on the six-game trip through Anaheim and Seattle. More important, the Rangers scored more than three runs just once in the six games.

In a powerful but mostly right-handed lineup, Hamilton has played a crucial role for five years. His critics, or those who think the team should prudently walk away from him rather than make a $100 million-plus offer to the free agent this winter, will point to the latest injury as another indicator of his unpredictability.

Even if he appears in all of the last 10 games, Hamilton will have averaged fewer than 130 games per season in his five years in Texas.

I go the other direction and, to play off his words, hey, it’s Josh. You know it’s going to be (occasionally) something great.

Beyond that, we don’t really have a feel for what this team’s budget will be going forward, but we know it’s huge. A much larger local TV contract kicks in during the 2014 season. And this was a team able to afford $108 million for Yu Darvish (in salary and posting fee) before he tossed his first major league pitch.

Money talk can wait. The A’s are in town, and the Rangers’ biggest task remains winning the division and preparing for the playoffs. Right behind that is finding a way to keep their often distracted and now under-caffeinated center fielder from dozing off during the game.

Chasing a home run title to go with another AL West division flag might be just the thing to do it.

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About Tim Cowlishaw

Tim Cowlishaw has been The Dallas Morning News' lead sports columnist since July 1998. Prior to that he covered the Cowboys for six seasons and the Stars for three as a beat reporter. He also covered the Rangers as a backup beat writer and was the San Jose Mercury News' beat writer on the San Francisco Giants in the late 1980s.

Tim has been appearing regularly on ESPN"s "Around the Horn" since the show made its debut in November 2002. He also worked with ESPN as part of the network's "NASCAR Now" coverage in 2007-08.

Favorite Dallas restaurants: Park, Nick and Sam's, Kenichi.

Worst sports prediction: His first in college ... that Earl Campbell had no shot at the Heisman Trophy.

Best sports memories: Seeing the Dallas Stars hoist the Stanley Cup long after midnight in Buffalo, watching the Dallas Cowboys win the Super Bowl and Texas win the national title in perfect Rose Bowl settings.